AI Tech
SANDEEP SHARMA | December 11, 2020
Intelligence is a much-debated term, with varying connotations to distinct disciplines. Humans have an innate intelligence that is capable of achieving complex, integrative goals through multiple faculties. These faculties involve learning and creativity, deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, critical thinking, strategy and planning, scenario analysis, and more. Humans have an evolutionary mind that is capable of drawing inferences and insights.
Creating machines, bots, or capabilities imbued with human-like intelligence has fascinated humans for a long time and has been the subject of active technical effort since John McCarthy coined the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI). Interest in AI has waxed and waned, with unrealized hype leading to a long AI winter. However, recent advances, such as Hinton’s backpropagation based deep neural networks for ImageNet that match human accuracy for image recognition, have revived hope and optimism for the advent of ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ (AGI).
AGI is about emulating or even exceeding, human levels of intelligence. At the moment, it is more of a pipe dream in the realm of sci-fi movies like Terminator. Silicon Valley leaders and scientists like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking have predicted a dystopian, even Frankensteinian, world with recursively- improving technological singularity potentially turning against the humans.
Strong Vs. Weak AI
Weak or narrow AI is categorized as mimicking a specific human ability to perform a well-defined task. Humans seem to have become pretty good at aspects of narrow AI lately, such as natural language processing (NLP), image recognition, machine translation, and detecting fraudulent credit card transactions. In the words of Andrew Ng, any task that takes a few minutes of human cognition can be automated with supervised machine learning and the help of labeled data. Recent advances in machine and deep learning have upped the ante on weak AI. For example, DeepMind’s AlphaFold can solve the intractable problem of predicting a protein’s folding structure from its amino acid sequence, thereby circumventing years of laborious work. This goes far beyond narrow AI into the gray zone.
Strong AI, or artificial general intelligence, can solve present-day ‘AI-hard’ problems that require a complex interplay of human cognitive abilities. For example, understanding the nuances of language is hard, but humans are slowly making strides. Some human skills are multifactorial, such as driving that requires image recognition, fine motor skills, or estimation with a high degree of situational awareness. A point has been reached where a self-driving car with level five autonomy can emulate that with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) while being vulnerable to getting tricked at the same time.
Leading voices have articulated several benchmarks for having accomplished AGI, such as:
Turing test: If a human and machine are indistinguishable most of the time while conversing with another human. With OpenAI’s GPT-n series, that is probably not far away.
A bot or computational system successfully passes grad school.
An AGI bot becomes a productive member of society, possibly paying taxes while performing a complex job.
Emulating the Human Brain
Unraveling the human brain is as enigmatic as solving the mysteries of the cosmos. With approximately 100 billion neurons interconnected through a quadrillion synapses, leading to 100 trillion synaptic updates per second (SUPS), the human brain is inordinately complex to simulate. Other than the interconnectedness of the brain, its evolutionary neurophysiology at the molecular and cellular level requires a level of chemical, physical, and biological understanding that leaves one confounded. How the three-pound mass of mostly fat, protein and water, with neurons firing in a chemical soup, allows cognitive abilities is quite hard to fathom.
All the advances in artificial neural networks, IoT sensing, 5G bandwidth, real-time big data, GPUs or TPUs, and storage put together get nowhere close to creating a computational system that has characteristics of sentience, self-awareness, sapience, and consciousness. Some even argue that there can be no human-like intelligence and consciousness without the accompanying embodiment.
Challenging as that may be, the advances in narrow AI are quickly adding up, with a bottom-up approach, to an impressive array of well-defined and compartmentalized human abilities. While AGI is the holy grail, the key point is that such pursuits are enabling scientific and technological advances that are the sweet spot of enabling human-in-the-loop technologies that augment humans instead of replacing them. Progress will likely stay in the augmentation zone for the next couple of decades, as Ray Kurzweil’s prediction of AGI comes true by 2045. Others argue that humans may not accomplish AGI in this century at all. But there is little disagreement over the fact that AI is likely to create US$15 trillion of economic value by 2030, with US$6 trillion being attributed to deeplearning alone. Individuals, societies, and businesses have to brace for that impact.
How Can Businesses Prepare and Respond to General AI
China is leading the AI frontier, as much as due to its lack of regulatory and ethical oversight as to its dogged commitment to winning the AI supremacy race. The US is not far behind whereas other nations occupy different positions on the leaderboard. Expertise in AI is likely to shake up the global economic and geopolitical order in the future world. While individuals grapple with the widespread displacement of world labor markets, enterprises need to sense and respond as well to ensure they thrive in a world replete with AI.
Here are some steps they can take to ensure they are not sidelined in a world of sustained disruption and mere transient advantages:
#1 Create a vision of yourself in the future world of AGI. Make small bets to preserve strategic options in aspects of your business potentially exposed to general AI.
#2 Make big, bold moves on narrow AI for quick wins. This will instill confidence and purpose to respond to general AI as it comes of age. Embrace AI augmentation as opposed to resisting it.
#3 Put your digital maturity on the front burner and prioritize digital transformation initiatives. Be a digital leader, not a laggard.
#4 Data maturity is a precursor to digital maturity. Invest in advantaged data with internal data or external data from partnerships, acquisitions, or ecosystem orchestration. AI is contingent upon data and algorithmic advances.
#5 Democratize technology by expanding it beyond the traditional IT organization of the company.
#6 Embrace a digital culture with rapid test-and-learn abilities. Don’t ostracize failure as long as you pivot fast and fail cheaply.
#7 Institutionalize innovation incubation. Also, explore open innovation models by partnering with other businesses and institutions.
#8 Orchestrate between exploitation and exploration strategies – the former for the here and now and the latter for the future.
#9 Deploy a forward-thinking governance framework that can orchestrate across near, mid-, and long-term growth.
#10 Deploy your workforce in fluid, agile, self-organizing teams that can ‘flow to the work’.
Read MoreSANDEEP SHARMA | November 20, 2020
As smart machines, data, and algorithms usher in dramatic technological transformation, its global impact spans from cautious optimism to doomsday scenarios. Widespread transformation, displacement, and disaggregation of world labor markets is speculated in countries like India, with an estimated 600 million workforce by 2022, as well as the global labor market. Even today, we are witnessing the resurgence of 'hybrid' jobs where distinctive human abilities are paired with data and algorithms, and 'super' jobs that involve deep tech. Our historical response to such tectonic shifts and upheavals has been predictable so far - responding with trepidation and uncertainty in the beginning followed by a period of painful transition. Communities and nations that can sense and respond will be able to shape social, economic, and political order decisively. However, with general AI predictably coming of age by 2050-60, governments will need to frame effective policies to respond to their obligations to their citizens. This involves the creation of a new social contract between the individual, enterprise, and state for an inclusive and equitable society.
The present age is marked by automation, augmentation, and amplification of human talent by transformative technologies. A typical career may go through 15-20 transitions. And given the gig economy, the shelf-life of skills is rapidly shrinking. Many agree that for the next 30 years, the nature and the volume of jobs will get significantly redefined. So even as it is nearly impossible to gaze into the crystal ball 100 years later, one can take a shot at what jobs may emerge in the next 20-30 years given the present state. So here is a glimpse into the kind of technological changes the next generation might witness that will change the employment scenario:
RESTORATION OF BIODIVERSITY
Our biodiversity is shrinking frighteningly fast - for both flora and fauna. Extinct species revivalists may be challenged with restoring and reintegrating pertinent elements back into the natural environment. Without biodiversity, humanity will perish.
PERSONALIZED HEALTHCARE
Medicine is rapidly getting personalized as genome sequencing becomes commonplace. Even today, Elon Musk's Neuralink is working on brain-machine interfaces. So you may soon be able to upload your brain onto a computer where it can be edited, transformed, and re-uploaded back into you. Anti-aging practitioners will be tasked with enhancing human life-spans to ensure we stay productive late into our twilight years. Gene sequencers will help personalize treatments and epigenetic therapists will manipulate gene expression to overcome disease and decay. Brain neurostimulation experts and augmentationists may be commonplace to ensure we are happier, healthier, and disease-free. In fact, happiness itself may get redefined as it shifts from the quality of our relationships to that between man-machine integration.
THE QUANTIFIED SELF
As more of the populace interact and engage with a digitized world, digital rehabilitators will help you detox and regain your sense of self, which may get inseparably intertwined with smart machines and interfaces.
DATA-LED VALUE CREATION
Data is exploding at a torrid pace and becoming a source of value-creation. While today's organizations are scrambling to create data lakes, future data-centers will be entrusted with sourcing high-value data, securing rights to it, and even licensing it to others. Data will increasingly create competitive asymmetries amongst organizations and nations. Data brokers will be the new intermediaries and data detectives, analysts, monitors or watchers, auditors, and frackers will emerge as new-age roles. Since data and privacy issues are entwined together, data regulators, ethicists, and trust professionals will thrive. Many new cyber laws will come into existence.
HEALING THE PLANET
As the world grapples with the specter of climate change, our focus on sustainability and clean energy will intensify. Our landfills are choked with both toxic and non-toxic waste. Plastic alone takes almost 1000 years to degrade, so landfill operators will use earthworm-like robots to help decompose waste and recoup precious recyclable waste. Nuclear fusion will emerge as the new source of clean energy, creating a broad gamut of engineers, designers, integrators, architects, and planners around it. We may even generate power in space. Since our oceans are infested with waste, a lot of initiatives and roles will emerge around cleaning the marine environment to ensure natural habitat and food security.
TAMING THE GENOME
As technologies like CRISPR and Prime-editing mature, we may see a resurgence of biohackers and programmable healthcare. Our health and nutrition may be algorithmically managed. CRISPR-like advancements will need a swathe of engineers, technicians, auditors, and regulators for genetically engineered health that may overcome a wide variety of diseases for longer life-expectancy.
THE RISE OF BOTS
Humanoid and non-humanoid robots will need entire workforce ecosystems around them spanning from suppliers, programmers, operators, and maintenance experts to ethicists and UI-designers. Smart robot psychologists will have to counsel them and ensure they are safe and friendly. Regulators may grant varying levels of autonomy to robots.
DATA LOADS THE GUN, CREATIVITY FIRES THE TRIGGER
Today's deep-learning Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) can create music like Mozart and paintings like Picasso. Such advancements will give birth to a wide array of AI-enhanced professionals, like musicians, painters, authors, quantum programmers, cybersecurity experts, educators, etc.
FROM AUGMENTATION TO AUTONOMY
Autonomous driving is about to mature in the next few years and will extend to air and space travel. Safety will exceed human capabilities and we may soon reach a state of diminishing returns where we will employ fewer humans to prevent mishaps and unforeseen occurrences. This industry will need supportive command center managers, traffic analyzers, fleet managers, and people to ensure onboarding experience.
BLOCKCHAIN BECOMES PERVASIVE
Blockchain will create a lot of jobs for its mainstream and derivative applications. Even though most of its present applications are in Financial Services, Supply Chain, and Asset Management industries, very soon its adoption and integration will be a lot more expansive. Engineers, designers, UI/UX experts, analysts, auditors, and regulators will be required to manage blockchain-related applications. With Crypto being one of its better-known applications, a lot of transaction specialists, miners, insurers, wealth managers, and regulators will be needed. Crypto exchanges will come under the purview of the regulatory framework.
3D PRINTING TURNS GAME-CHANGER
Additive manufacturing, also popularly called 3D printing, will mature in its precision, capabilities, and market potential. Lab-grown, 3D-printed food will be part of our regular diet. Transplantable organs will be generated using stem cell research and 3D printing. Amputees and the disabled will adopt 3D-printed limbs and prosthetics. Its applications for high-precision reconstructive surgery are already commonplace. Pills are being 3D printed as we speak. So again, we are looking at 3D printers, operators, material scientists, pharmacists, construction experts, etc.
THE COLONIZATION OF OUTER SPACE
Amazon's Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX signal a new horizon. As space tech gets into a new trajectory, a new breed of commercial space pilots, mission planners, launch managers, cargo experts, ground crew, experience designers, etc. will be required. Since we have ravaged the limited resources of our planet already, mankind will need to venture into asteroid mining for rare and precious metals. This will need scouts and surveyors, meteorologists, remote bot operators, remotely managed factories, and whatnot.
THE HYPER-CONNECTED WORLD
By 2020, we already have anywhere between 50-75 billion connected devices. By 2040, this will likely swell to more than 100 trillion sensors that will spew out a dizzying volume of real-time data ready for analytics and AI. A complete IoT system as we know it is aware, autonomous, and actionable, just like a self-driving car. Imagine the number of data modelers, sensor designers and installers, signal architects and engineers that will be needed. Home automation will be pervasive and smart medicines, implants, and wearables will be the norms of the day.
DRONES USHER IN DISRUPTION
Unmanned aerial and underwater drones are already becoming ubiquitous for applications in aerial surveillance, delivery, and security. Countries are awakening to their potential as well as possibilities of misuse. Command centers, just like that for space travel, will manage them as countries rush to put in a regulatory framework around them. An army of designers, programmers, security experts, traffic flow optimizers will harness their true potential.
SHIELDING YOUR DATA
With data come cyber threats, data breaches, cyber warfare, cyber espionage, and a host of other issues. The more data-dependent and connected the world is, the bigger the problem of cybersecurity will be. The severity of the problem will increase manifold from the current issues like phishing, spyware, malware, viruses and worms, ransomware, DoS/ DDoS attacks, hacktivism, and cybersecurity will indeed be big business. The problem is that threats are increasing 10X faster than investments in this space and the interesting thing is that it is a lot more about audits, governance, policies, and compliance than technology alone.
FOOD-TECH COMES OF AGE
As the world population grows to 9.7 billion people in 2050, cultured food and lab-grown meat will hit our tables to ensure food security. Entire food chains and value delivery networks will see an unprecedented change. Agriculture will be transformed with robotics, IoT, drones, and the food-tech sector will take off in a big way.
QUANTUM COMPUTING SOLVES INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS
Finally, while the list is very long, let’s touch upon the advent of qubits, or Quantum computing. With its ability to break the best encryption on the planet, the traditional asymmetric encryption, public key infrastructure, digital envelopes, and digital certificates in use today will be rendered useless. Bring in the quantum programmers, analysts, privacy and trust managers, health monitors, etc.
As we brace for the world that looms large ahead of us, the biggest enabler that will be transformed itself will be Education 4.0. Education will cease to be a phase in your life. Life-long interventions will be needed to adapt, impart, and shape the skills of individuals that are ready for the future of work. More power to the people!
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